Berlin Germany, january teens, 2003

i did not feel lucky. i had spent the week before in paris. "spent" isnt the right verb. washed. wasted. whittled. withered. i was broke, the water pipes were frozen, the milk on the cupboard had curdled, i was out of coffee, i was out of pasta, i hadnt showered in at least ten days, and i hadnt sold a painting in almost two months. i had hit some kind of bottom and was closer to an emaciated ethiopian than a french pastry.
so i left paris. fortunately. i probably would have pulled my own trachea out in frustration. i was trying to decide whether i should join the french foreign legion or whore myself out to the old women and rich fags at La Coupole. either seemed preferable to rotting in the ice of wintertime paris. it was in this state i left for berlin.

paris is like an opiate. you can be happy there and not know it. you can be miserable there and miss it.

leaving then was a lucky thing. i like to think that luck doesnt exist - that it is a state of determination that leaks into the world, changing our path as we trickle down our hill of decisions. but some times, in some places, like this year in berlin, its clear; and luck can cloud the air like a pollution. your free will goes away and you are in the huge hands of god.

we drank.

anyway, we were up until dawn wallowing in our alchohol and idiocy. we dauldromatic dragons of hot air had become stupid sloths by the day's beginning, and there we were, with our boots on the table, making jokes that no-one but us laughers could get. being drunk is good. i read somewhere that alcohol is proof that god wants us to be happy.

i like being hungover in the mornings. it slows me down.

the morning is the punchline to the joke that god played on you the night before.

his name was

Magnus Zeller

.

i left berlin on a train, thinking about the crows, and the demons, and the baboon.girl that i kissed, and my luck;

If I lived in an angel ,
I would dream under her tongue
And weep next to her ribs
And I would shout curses out to god from inside her hollow throat
And I would stand on her head to see the pastures of high heaven
And I would paint with my own blood on the whites of her wings
laughing.
If I lived in a devil ,
I would make him eat his head
And breed rattlesnakes in his throat
And I would turn his trachea to traintracks
And he would vomit up a snowstorm, and flakes would fall around him
floating up to people nearby, touching them and
kissing.
If I lived in me ,
I would laugh and kiss and write and paint
And I would be drunk in the bars of berlin
And I would be freezing in the streets of paris
And I would smash myself to pieces in far away lands
And I would be reborn among angels and devils
that would stare out at the world from buildings and trees.
This is my dream of flesh.
This is my curse of luck.